District 76 inks new teacher contract

Diamond Lake School District 76 teachers will get 3.14-percent annual raises, on average, for the new school year and the next term as part of a contract adopted Tuesday night.

The starting base salary for beginning teachers will not change, however.

Employee benefits won't change, either, Superintendent Roger Prosise said. However, the district will allocate an additional $20,000 to offset health-insurance costs for employees with spouses or families on the district plan, Prosise said.

The Mundelein-area school board unanimously agreed to the deal with the District 76 Teachers Association, which represents 116 educators, during a special meeting at West Oak Middle School. The union ratified the deal last week, officials said.

The two-year deal is retroactively effective starting Aug. 23. That was the first day of work for teachers in the 2010-11 school year.

The scheduled raises, known in education as step increases, reward teachers for years of service and apply to all teachers. Common to the industry, they are not based on performance.

The starting salary for a new teacher with a bachelor's degree and no professional experience will remain $35,773, Prosise said.

The contract didn't include stipends for extracurricular participation or a final teacher evaluation form. Those two elements will be put before the board at a future meeting, Prosise said.

Negotiations lasted about six months, Prosise said. He characterized the talks as "good."

District 76 has about 1,200 students at its three schools, from pre-kindergartners through eighth-graders. The schools are Diamond Lake Elementary, Fairhaven and West Oak Middle.